we watched al-qaeda elements able to destroy our or damage severely our consulate in benghazi and kill four brave americans. the message has to be sent that the united states is engaged, reeled disability claims to be involved, and the united states is ready to do whatever is necessary to prevent and act that could endanger or take the lives of literally thousands and thousands of innocent people. senator lieberman. >> thanks, john. we've obviously reached a grave moment in the war that's raged in syria now for more than 20 months, and it's grave for the obvious effect that we believe the outside government has weaponnized the chemical and bilogical agents and put them in a position where they can be used fairly rapidly. this, as you look back over the 20 months of the conflict, this follows a series of events, one leading to the other which people said could not happen, and this began, remember, with peaceful demonstrations, and when assad was unable to control them or suppress them, he began to fire on his own people, and they began to defend themselves in a very unfair fight, one ma